Necromancy: Evil?

[Rutskarn]

Most campaigns rule that necromancy, at least as it pertains to raising undead, is kinda evil. While there doesn't actually seem to be a reason for that, the fact is that you never see a puppy-raising proud father of two who works a soup kitchen on Thursdays and raises zombies on Fridays. Question is: is that a stereotype, is that an imposed moral judgment, or is that just how morality works?

If that third one's the case, it means that necromancers are evil because raising the dead, in D&D, is evil. If you're running a black-and-white sort of campaign, you can probably get away with this sort of thing--you don't necessarily have to have a reason behind it, you can just sort of shrug and say, "That's how it works. Fiat morality, biznatch." This is not an incorrect solution, especially in a hack-and-slash or shiny-fuzzy hero quest sort of campaign.

If it's an imposed moral judgment, there does have to be a reason it's bad. "It deals with corpses and that's icky," is not a good reason. "They're robbing graves," is better, but that's not always true, really. Hell, adventurers go around murdering people left and right; it's not like the traveling necromancer's going to want for materials. "They're disrupting the natural balance of nature," is pretty shaky--a.) that doesn't really mean anything, which means it's basically just fiat morality all over again, and b.) resurrection seems to be A-OK, and that's arguably worse. It does use negative energy, I guess, but is that really evil? I don't think you have to be evil to cast negative energy spells. It's just a nasty raw material, not necessarily a tool of evil.

Now, if you want to make it evil and have it make sense, you could always come up with an explanation like, "it deprives the corpse's soul of peace," which would also give paladins and good clerics good reason to seek out zombies and put them back in the ground. This would be a great hook for a zombie slaying campaign, although you'd also have to work out what the deal with intelligent undead is.

If it's the first one--evil is just a stereotype, not a rule--then you've got some interesting tools to work with. I did just run a campaign with a neutral necromancer who wasn't immoral, macabre, or sinister--he had a calling in life, and that calling was centered around experimenting with human tissue post-mortification. He was a little like a medical examiner, creepy only because of how casual he was around the cadavers the PCs brought to him. His personality was chipper and easygoing, and he did have a bit of a warped sense of humor--he'd give the zombies names, for example, and would teach them to do tricks beyond the usual kill-guard programming. Beyond that, he was almost scientific in his pursuit of magical knowledge. Keep in mind also that this is a campaign without resurrection, so it's not like there was an alternative field of study for him to pursue.

So, which of these three approaches appeals most to you, as a DM or a player?

[Desril]

I'm of the opinion that "Dark is not Evil", and my players understand that when I'm DMing. I do however make most NPCs think of it as evil and horrid, because that's the stereotype that most people seem to believe.


In other words, it's not evil, but the npcs don't like it.

[WinWin]

Depends. Graverobbing could be construed as malevolent if that is how a Necromancer gains raw materials.

Non evil methods of obtaining raw materials could be:

People donating their body to the Nerco for research/science.
Using corpses of enemies/animals (probably more acceptable during war or emergency)
People volounteering to become undead guardians after they die.

This thread has some interesting information about the morality of animating the dead.

http://community.wizards.com/go/thre..._of_Necromancy

[CakeTown]

How is Resurrection worse than necromancy? From what I understand, Raising someone from the dead requires them to be willing. Raising a corpse as a zombie doesn't need any consent from the corpse, and basically makes them a slave.

From my perspective, necromancy is evil. It's a violation of a dead person's body. I certainly wouldn't like it if some guy dug up my relative's grave just so he could bring them back as a mindless slave.

[Archdeacon GX]

Personally I view all such things like this: Nothing is inherently good or evil. It is the use to which it is put and the intentions behind it that make it good or evil.

For example: Most people say that Resurrecting people is good. What if you Resurrect an evil person who wants to take over the world? That's not so Good, unless you're unaware of the person's alignment and intentions.

The "disrupting the natural order" argument could be brought to bear against Resurrection as well, and even Healing spells, as TECHNICALLY they are Necromantic spells, at least from a certain understanding of things (seriously, Conjuration for healing spells? What are you conjuring?)

I view them as Necromantic spells that use Positive Energy instead of Negative Energy. Why? Because Necromancy is defined by the D&D 3.5 rules as "manipulating the power of death, unlife, and the life force". The key part here being "and the life force". If you are resurrecting someone, you are manipulating both the power of Death and the Life Force to return life to the body and call their spirit back to it. In that sense, at least, even healing and resurrecting people is 'against the natural order' because people don't 'naturally' regenerate their wounds near-instantaneously (except for creatures such as Trolls), or come back to life after being killed.

The Grim Reaper, Death Itself, (or Nerull, or Cyric, etc.) are also viewed as evil because they are symbolic or hold power over Death. Why is this evil? People are supposed to die, and sure it may cause the living grief, but it's part of the cycle of life. If nobody ever died the world/material plane/etc. would become overpopulated and we'd have serious space issues. Not to mention the Final Battle Vs. The BBEG would become very anticlimactic.

So in short, I don't think Necromancy in and of itself is evil. It is considered evil because it deals with the social -- and often religious -- taboo of undeath. It also doesn't help that 90% of Necromancers that make themselves at all known are actually evil in some fashion.

EDIT: In response to the above post (which was made as I was typing this ) I'd like to reiterate the point of Use and Intent. Necromancy isn't even always creating Zombies or Skeletons, it's also stuff like Finger of Death and Energy Drain and Ray of Enfeeblement. So you can technically be a Necromancer without ever creating Undead Slaves.

And besides, who says all Necromancers use the undead they create as slaves? As the post before the above one said, what if they were willing body-donors for experimentation or Undead Guardianship?

[Rutskarn]

How is Resurrection worse than necromancy? From what I understand, Raising someone from the dead requires them to be willing. Raising a corpse as a zombie doesn't need any consent from the corpse, and basically makes them a slave.

The spells that make homonculi are not evil, though, and those are also making slaves from inanimate objects. Do you really own your body after you're dead?

[Zaydos]

Now, if you want to make it evil and have it make sense, you could always come up with an explanation like, "it deprives the corpse's soul of peace," which would also give paladins and good clerics good reason to seek out zombies and put them back in the ground. This would be a great hook for a zombie slaying campaign, although you'd also have to work out what the deal with intelligent undead is.

This is my typical answer (although I've gone the evil is a stereotype once or twice before). As for intelligent undead it depends upon whether they are created by a spell (a la Create Undead)/create spawn ability, or spontaneously.

If created by a spell or create spawn ability then you are depriving the soul of peace and twisting it into a horrid mockery of itself. The connection to negative energy warps and twists the spirit as well leading to some mental instability going up to full blown psychosis.

If spontaneously spawned undead, then it is usually they refused to die for selfish reasons or out of desire for revenge/hatred/greed/etc. In strong spirited cases this can cause an (usually evil) entity to return from the grave. Sometimes this happens with good aligned creatures but they are typically either 1) willing to wait to be revived in a less twisted fashion, or 2) simply wish to finish a certain task and willing to request the aid of a higher power to do so. In which case a god can grant them temporary life as a deathless.

I will admit I use some of the "it's against nature" route, focusing more on how tying their lifeforce to negative energy twists nature around them and brings more death into the world; they exist as a continuous conduit of negative energy (as opposed to the one off blast from Energy Drain or Enervation). It's not so much you are disrupting the natural balance by bringing them back, it is that you are creating a being of anti-life that damages the life force of the entire prime ever so slightly with its presence. Although casual resurrection is usually frowned upon by the gods as well and usually only given to those who've "earned it". I actually have a rule where after enough deaths you can no longer be revived because the magic starts to fail when used on you. Direct divine intervention can bring you back one or two more times, but beyond that even the gods cannot interfere. In practice this is more to say if your character has died 3 times in a row then you should probably roll up a new character that's a little less death prone (I've only had one character die on me more than once and he was a woefully badly built would-be tank; I go too easy on my players).

As a final note I keep my Death gods and Necromancy gods separate (although normally related as father and son), and the god of Death gets quite upset with resurrection spells and necromancy.

[Gorgondantess]

I understand it's distasteful to dig up poor Uncle Larry and have his rotting corpse do your bidding, but it's just that- his corpse. His soul is still in whatever afterlife he deserves, unharmed- no sentient beings are done any disservice, really. And necromancy is considered evil.

Meanwhile, in the creation of a golem a mage tricks a free willed, sentient being- an elemental- who is, by definition, not evil- and traps it in a golem, fusing its spirit to it. The elemental ceases to be sentient, merely powering the golem for whatever the mage desires, and doesn't even have the mercy of rejoining its home plane, instead being in a comatose sort of limbo. A fate worse than death. And an exalted paladin character can make a golem.

All this goes to show is that the D&D morality system is messed up. This has been proven on a number of occasions, with a number of different examples. This isn't news. Doesn't make it not fun to talk about, though.
As a DM, I've always just ruled necromancy as distasteful, but not necessarily evil. You can have good undead and all that.

[Archdeacon GX]

There are also a special kind of Elven Lich that are Good, I believe. Guardians of ancient secrets, I think, I forgot what they're called. Baelnorns? Yes, that's it.

[Ajadea]

The way I view it is (when playing at home):
-Making Golems is Evil with a capital E, for the reasons Gorgontandess stated.

-Making Sentient Undead is Evil, because it requires yanking back the soul (willing or not) into a corpse and enslaving it.

-Resurrection, while not exactly evil, is morally grey at best. Screwing with life, death, and the balance between the two is not exactly the most good-ish thing to do.

-Death gods are mostly LN, and I have occasionally made gods who have birth, life, and death all in their portfolio. You're dead, everyone dies sooner or later, now shut up and stop whining. Death gods hate, hate, hate, necromancers and anyone who starts messing with souls. Leave the souls alone, and the dead stay dead, understood?

-Necromancy isn't bad, but messing with corpses looks bad on a resume most of the time.

-Cure X Wounds, Heal, Raise Dead, and other things along those lines, are Transmutation or Conjuration/Necromancy dual-school spells, depending. You speed up natural healing/remove rigor mortis and rot/replace rotted-off flesh and channel a ton of positive energy into the body simultaneously.

[Gensh]

I'm of the opinion that "Dark is not Evil", and my players understand that when I'm DMing. I do however make most NPCs think of it as evil and horrid, because that's the stereotype that most people seem to believe.


In other words, it's not evil, but the npcs don't like it.

This. My players don't share my viewpoint, being more of the "kill everything in sight; let the gods sort it out" sort of philosophy, but any given use of negative energy is not inherently evil. Sure, it may be inimical to life, but life is pretty cheap and easily replenished. Use a death ray once and there may be some residue, but it'll fade out pretty quickly; undead keep it on the material plane indefinitely, but it's self-contained and harmless. In fact, there's always the secret lurking in the backs of my games that if the population continues growing, the material will become minor positive-dominant, though it hasn't been discovered yet.

[Shademan]

well, you use negative energy. which is evil energy.
In my view, every evil act commited fuels the furnace of the negative energy plane, and thus when you use that energy you are using evil energy.
or maybe when you animate a skeleton you bind the unwilling soul of whoever that skeleton belonged to into the bones. there, the soul screams in confusion, pain, fear and suffering. until some adventurers destroy it.

[Snake-Aes]

well, you use negative energy. which is evil energy.

Negative energy is not evil. Just like positive energy isn't good.

[Shademan]

isnt the negative energy plane evil aligned?
my mistake

[hamishspence]

problem is, in DMG, the negative energy plane does not have the Evil subtype (so good beings are not penalized when they go there, like they would be if they went to a plane like Hades).

Similarly, there's nothing to suggest that an animated skeleton is fuelled by the soul of what living being it was.

However, some sources (like Libris Mortis) do suggest that a malevolent spirit inhabits the body of a skeleton or zombie.

If "Good and evil are the forces that define the cosmos" as is said in PHB, and if, each time you commit an evil act, you shift the entire cosmic balance slightly toward evil, it does make sense that some good characters might be wary of "doing evil deeds toward good ends"

It's worth remembering that classes like the Dread Necromancer do not have to be evil- they can be Neutral, heroic, balance their rare evil deeds (animating the dead) with lots of Good ones, and still maintain a Neutral alignment.

EDIT: Ninjaed on negative energy.

Interesting, in PHB, it does state "channelling negative energy is an evil act" when referring to turn/rebuke, but other spells based on negative energy, like the Inflict line of spells, and possibly Enervation and Energy Drain, aren't evil to cast.

[Shademan]

to clarify, I was not suggesting that by core, souls inhabit skeletons, but rather I was suggesting it as a reason why necromancy(which is a stupid name for animatig corpses anyways) could be evil in a campaign world

[hamishspence]

it's one way of handling it. I like Libris Mortis's "spirits" concept- especially when combined with "Atrocity Calls to Unlife"- if terrible deeds are done in an area, malevolent spirits seep into the world, and corpses spontaneously animate.

[Zeofar]

Explanation, not stereotype. Necromancers themselves can be good, but using necromancy to raise mindless corpses is evil because it violates the natural law to control of one's own body and a peaceful death. In a society where those rights aren't recognized, it wouldn't be seen as evil, but it would still be an evil-aligned act because it violates rights.

On the other hand, if someone truly wanted to be made a skeleton or a zombie, it wouldn't necessarily be evil.

[Shademan]

it's one way of handling it. I like Libris Mortis's "spirits" concept- especially when combined with "Atrocity Calls to Unlife"- if terrible deeds are done in an area, malevolent spirits seep into the world, and corpses spontaneously animate.

This I agree to

[Xefas]

If it's an imposed moral judgment, there does have to be a reason it's bad. "It deals with corpses and that's icky," is not a good reason. "They're robbing graves," is better, but that's not always true, really. Hell, adventurers go around murdering people left and right; it's not like the traveling necromancer's going to want for materials. "They're disrupting the natural balance of nature," is pretty shaky--a.) that doesn't really mean anything, which means it's basically just fiat morality all over again, and b.) resurrection seems to be A-OK, and that's arguably worse. It does use negative energy, I guess, but is that really evil? I don't think you have to be evil to cast negative energy spells. It's just a nasty raw material, not necessarily a tool of evil.

I find this paragraph has a few holes because of the assumptions you make. "It deals with corpses and that's icky" is a perfectly fine reason depending on what your setting is. Basing your morality on a real-world ancient society that believes dealing with the dead is unclean is just as arbitrary as basing your morality on modern 1st-world countries' definition of it.

"They're disrupting the natural balance of nature" is also perfectly fine, depending on the setting. In a world where Druids can just call up nature and say "Hey, is this against your balance?" and Nature can just say "Yeah", then yes, that's perfectly reasonable to assume it's evil.

You also seem to assume that "go[ing] around murdering people left and right" is just fine, regardless of setting, whereas in a setting with more contemporary ideals like 'corpses are just objects we don't own anymore' (and heck, a lot of people still don't believe that), killing at all is probably seen as evil as well, and your standard Greyhawk adventurer would be as evil as they come.

Now, if you want to make it evil and have it make sense, you could always come up with an explanation like, "it deprives the corpse's soul of peace," which would also give paladins and good clerics good reason to seek out zombies and put them back in the ground. This would be a great hook for a zombie slaying campaign, although you'd also have to work out what the deal with intelligent undead is.

If I'm playing in a setting where Undead are Evil (which I don't always), this is the explanation I give. Intelligent dead still have their soul, but it's warped into excruciating pain by the negative energy animating it. I mean, I assume everyone is a bit more irritable when they, say, have a migraine or a stubbed toe or something. And then you imagine being constantly wracked with horrible pain, but the pain isn't inflicted on your physical body (so it doesn't inhibit your motor skills or anything). Your very being feels empty, lonely, desperate, and hurt 24/7. At the same time, your survival instinct is as strong as ever, so you're not going to off yourself - you're just going to make yourself feel better. Generally by preying on hapless commoners.

So, which of these three approaches appeals most to you, as a DM or a player?

I've used all of them, and all of them function just as well as any of the others. You just have to tailor it to the setting you're looking for.

[Jarrick]

Geez, such long paragraphs. I'm not reading all this.

In my campaigns, undead are evil because even the mindless ones, when left to their own devices, will go out of their way to attack and hurt people when the opportunity arises. You're literally creating a monster when you animate something. Its also highly disrespectful to the dead person and his family. In my japan-based setting, animating the dead is punishable by death because it defiles the ancestors.

That being said, my namesake necromancer character (evil campaign) started out as a medical researcher, just like the example earlier, but he came to the conclusion that undeath was a superior state of being, and so set out to create a world dominated by the unliving, rather than the living. When I last left him, he had just hit epic levels and had built a city with the aid of his restless followers in a remote location where the undead could live in the open in peace, and he rules as king and is worshipped as a god. The manifest zone to the negative energy plane there that prevents them from having to feed (epic spell) makes undead from around the world flock to the city, which grows daily... He's well on his way to being a god, i'd say. lol

[Emmerask]

Most campaigns rule that necromancy, at least as it pertains to raising undead, is kinda evil. While there doesn't actually seem to be a reason for that

Create Undead
Necromancy [Evil]

It´s not a campaign houserule it is RAW

[Snake-Aes]

Create Undead
Necromancy [Evil]

It´s not a campaign houserule it is RAW

And there's still no real reason for that other than the fact it's written there.

Face it, most of what gets the evil tag in necromancy is so because our society has a taboo with the dead. As said in previous threads of similar nature, it can be incredibly interesting to experiment with the removal of said taboo in the game table.

[Emmerask]

And there's still no real reason for that other than the fact it's written there.

Face it, most of what gets the evil tag in necromancy is so because our society has a taboo with the dead. As said in previous threads of similar nature, it can be incredibly interesting to experiment with the removal of said taboo in the game table.

I´m not denying that in some campaigns it makes sense to be not evil, his post only made it sound as if it´s some houserule everyone has agreed upon instead of being raw ^^

[Peregrine]

Now, if you want to make it evil and have it make sense, you could always come up with an explanation like, "it deprives the corpse's soul of peace," which would also give paladins and good clerics good reason to seek out zombies and put them back in the ground. This would be a great hook for a zombie slaying campaign, although you'd also have to work out what the deal with intelligent undead is.

This is my approach. I'm quite happy to keep the raising of undead as evil, but I fully agree that there needs to be an explanation for this that makes reference to what "evil" actually means -- not "because undead/negative energy/messing with corpses is evil", that always seems to be either unsupported, or "supported" by circular reasoning. (And it's not "undead are evil the same way water elementals are wet", as someone once posted. Wetness is a property of water. Evilness is not a property of undead, so the undead must possess some other defining element of evil.)

I make the following assumptions, backed up by RAW (though not, of course, the only way to interpret it):

• Raising undead causes ongoing torment to the soul of the creature you've raised. (RAW support: You cannot resurrect a creature while its body is ambulatory, even with true resurrection, which doesn't need that body at all. So undeadification has some kind of power to limit or affect the soul in its afterlife.)
• Non-intelligent undead are evil, because they have an innate drive to spread death and pain. If you leave a skeleton standing around without instructions, it will trample grass and mutilate earthworms, or the like.
• Intelligent undead are almost always caused by traumatic events or their own evil, which warps and torments the soul, giving it a similar drive to spread death and pain.
• Ghosts are the only (core) exception; they stick around because of a sense of "unfinished business" and a simple unwillingness to move on. Even among ghosts, though, I image more are Evil or Neutral than Good.

The only good objection I know of to the RAW support behind my first point is that you could give someone a true resurrection and then animate their old body. So for this reason I simply say that you can't make undead out of any body that doesn't "belong" to a soul. (Not a "former body" pre-raising, not a clone nor simulacrum.)

[AmberVael]

From my perspective, necromancy is evil. It's a violation of a dead person's body. I certainly wouldn't like it if some guy dug up my relative's grave just so he could bring them back as a mindless slave.

Its also highly disrespectful to the dead person and his family. In my japan-based setting, animating the dead is punishable by death because it defiles the ancestors.

There was something WinWin pointed out earlier which I want to bring up again, because I find it is a very crucial point:

What if someone donated their body to this cause? Wouldn't that mean it wasn't disrespectful or theft? Doesn't that render the argument null?

My point here is that this point is pointing at something that is not inherent to necromancy. You don't have to animate things you don't have permission to animate, and if you DO have permission to animate someone, it makes it a very different situation (even if people do find it really strange and creepy anyway).
It basically works on the same ethics as organ donars. If someone doesn't mind someone using their body after they die, then they can choose that, no?


I personally like the theme of necromancy being dark and feared, but not evil. The reason I think it is feared is because it is so much easier for a necromancer to abuse their power than use it correctly. Anyone can abuse power, but necromancy is inherently tied to a great number of moral and ethical issues, and it can be really tempting for a necromancer to take the easy route to power by stomping all over them. Being a necromancer who takes all the ethical issues into account is way harder, and probably far less rewarding. And even if you do succeed, people probably don't like you much anyway.

[Lysander]

I came up with this theory a few months ago: A New Reason Why Negative Energy Is [Evil]

The theory is that negative energy doesn't actually exist. There's only positive energy. The same way cold is merely a lack of heat, "negative energy" is just a lack of life energy. Necromancy is evil because it interferes with the function of life energy on your entire plane.

[Rutskarn]

At best, then, you could argue for neutral necromancy. Bringing negative energy in isn't a great thing, no, but if it's only done in the service of (for example) world-saving campaign shenanigans, one could argue that the ends justify the means.

[JBento]

In answer to your question:

D&D alignment system: WTH?

On a more explanatory note:

Necromancy alignment manages to make as much sense as Evocation and Conjuration purposes/abilities, i.e., less than actual 0.

Negative energy can't be Evil - Inflict spells very explictly channel it, and aren't Evil.
Undead aren't necessary Evil - ghosts are Alignment: Any, and revenants are Lawful Neutral.
Skellies and zombies ARE Evil (only in 3.5 - they weren't in 3.0) - the MM tells us so. However, they don't go around doing any more evil stuff than a golem does, so there's no actual reason for them to be Evil other than exactly that - the MM tells us so.
Creating them is Evil - the spells are clearly marked as such. There's no explanation for that anywhere in RAW. Interestingly, creating a golem (which is neutral) isn't Evil, despite it involving beating an elemental spirit into submission to animate it.

Basically, you have two options:

1) ignore it

2) go mad. MAD!!!!!

[hamishspence]

Negative energy can't be Evil - Inflict spells very explictly channel it, and aren't Evil.

Oddly, rebuke/command attempts are descibed as both "channelling negative energy" and "an evil act" in the PHB.

Unusual.